By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go.
But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning.
~ Lao Tzu

“Surrender is faith that the power of Love can accomplish anything
even when you cannot foresee the outcome.”
~ Deepak Chopra

“They are the chosen ones who have surrendered.”
~ Rumi

Love is the sacrifice of will.
If you cannot leave will behind
You have no will at all.
~ Rumi

“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?”
~ The Buddha

Q. How much “ego” do you need?A. Just enough so that you don’t step in front of a bus.
~ Shunryu Suzuki Roshi

We have nothing to surrender
but the idea that
we’re someone,
with something
to surrender.***
Let’s let go
and
let life live us,
as Love.***
Let’s leave it to the
Lone Arranger.***
Let’s let go, and “go with the flow”.*

*Being “in the flow” is thought-free, effortless, and focused
merging of intention, action, and awareness
as consciousness – consciously letting Life happen through you.***

Tao is Now,
Tao is One,
Tao is Doer,
Tao will be done.***
Tao will be done.
So let Tao do it.***
Give your spiritual
‘power of attorney’
to God.***
“Let go, and let God.”*

*Unity Church maxim***

Leave it to the Lone Arranger.***
Ego Antidote:
The root of all problems is
I/me/mine.
End it with antidote,
Thy/Thee/Thine.***
Ego: Use it to lose it!***
Immolate ego
in the fire of faith.***
As ego goes
consciousness grows
until it Knows –
Itself.***
Ego is free to choose,
but is never free.
Self does not choose,
but is ever free.***
Our only choice
is to accept
or reject
“what is”.***
Acceptance is pleasure;
rejection is suffering.
Acceptance is freedom;
rejection is bondage.
Acceptance is NOW;
rejection is then.***
So, if choose you must,
then with faith and trust,
say “yes” to Life.***
With radical trust
we do as we must.***
The more we trust
the less we try.***
Enter a state of enlightened amnesia:
Be now;
forget then.
Remember God;
forget the rest.***
Forget who you think you are,
to remember what you really are.

“Harmony is the secret principle of life.”
~ Paramahansa Yogananda

“When there is harmony between the mind, heart and resolution
then nothing is impossible.”
~ Rig Veda

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.”
~ Thomas Merton

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”
~ Rumi, The Essential Rumi

“As long as you live, you will be subject to change, whether you will it or not – now glad, now sorrowful; now pleased, now displeased; now devout, now undevout; now vigorous, now slothful; now gloomy, now merry. But a wise man who is well taught in spiritual labor stands unshaken in all such things, and heeds little what he feels, or from what side the wind of instability blows.”
~ Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

“As it acts in the world, the Tao is like the bending of a bow. The top is bent downward; the bottom is bent up. It adjusts excess and deficiency so that there is perfect balance. It takes from what is too much and gives to what isn’t enough. Those who try to control, who use force to protect their power, go against the direction of the Tao. They take from those who don’t have enough and give to those who have far too much. The Master can keep giving because there is no end to her wealth. She acts without expectation, succeeds without taking credit, and doesn’t think that she is better than anyone else.”
~ Lao Tzu *

Our life is in the balance,
Ever < NOW >,
‘Twixt our hopes
and our history,
On a fulcrum of Mystery,
Our life is in the balance,
Ever < NOW > !

“Ego is the biggest enemy of humans. ”
~ Rig Veda

“The foundation of the Buddha’s teachings lies in compassion,
and the reason for practicing the teachings is to wipe out the persistence of ego, the number-one enemy of compassion.”
~ H.H. Dalai Lama

“The entire Buddhist path is based on the discovery of egolessness and the maturing of insight or knowledge that comes from egolessness.”
~ Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

“Free of ego, living naturally, working virtuously, you become filled with inexhaustible vitality and are liberated forever from the cycle of death and rebirth. Understand this if nothing else: spiritual freedom and oneness with the Tao are not randomly bestowed gifts, but the rewards of conscious self-transformation and self-evolution.”
~ Lao Tzu

Ego’s attrition
is our mission;
Egocide’s our goal.
When ego’s dead
we’ll lose all dread,
Knowing we are Soul.
Then we’ll say
that life’s a play,
Each body/mind a role;
That we’re the Glory
and not the story,
Not just parts – but Whole.

“In the end these things matter most:
How well did you love?
How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?”
~ The Buddha

But ask the animals, and they will teach you,
or the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,
or let the fish of the sea inform you.
Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this?
~ Job 12:7-9

We have nothing to surrender
But the idea
That we’re someone,
With something
To surrender.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“But man is a part of nature,
and his war against nature is inevitably a war against himself.”
~ Rachel Carson

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”
~ William Shakespeare

The idea of spiritual “surrender” is encapsulated in the maxims:“Let go, and let God”; “Go with the Flow”; and “Not my will,
but Thy will be done”.
Both Eastern and Western religious and spiritual teachings
stress the importance of allowing the inconceivably immense power
of Nature, the Tao, or the Divine to guide our lives;
of simply surrendering to Life, and allowing it to live us as it may.
Before surrendering, we may egoically think ourselves separate from other beings and life-forms, and that we are in ultimate control of our lives.
But, as we gradually realize that we are inextricably part of Nature,
not separate from it, and that Nature Knows best and is in control, we more and more allow Nature, not ego, to guide us.
Surrender is an inner process; an intuitional attitude rather than an outer act,
arising gradually as we gain implicit trust and faith in Nature’s supreme perfection.
And as our faith in Nature grows, ego goes.
We gradually lose the ego illusion of separateness from Nature,
and ever more surrender to Life.
And when we become completely surrendered to the river of life –
the river of existence – ego disappears:
Revealing that our true nature is Nature;
Revealing we are THAT, to which we have surrendered.Ron’s audio recitation of Surrender- Let Go of Ego

“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

On retiring one Saturday night, I planned going to Trader Joe’s first thing in the morning, for bananas and other needed provisions. But I was unexpectedly delayed for over two hours.

From 6:30 to 9:30 I experienced recurrence of traumatic post-colonoscopy diarrheal episodes. Finally, by 10 a.m., I was pooped out and showered and ready to go to Trader Joe’s. But when I got into my garaged Prius, the battery was dead. Almost another hour passed before AAA had responded to my emergency call and jumped the Prius’ battery to get me going. But instead of heading straight to Trader Joe’s, I needed first to drive for twenty minutes to recharge the battery. So, I finally arrived at TJ’s a couple of hours later than planned.

There I discovered that two important items on my shopping list – gluten-free rice bread and blackberries (which are anti-diarrheal) – were not on the shelf. Disappointed, I was about to check out empty carted when a smiling TJ employee offered to look in the stock room for the missing items. So, instead of checking out, I waited for longer than expected.

While I was waiting, a special friend from my Aquatic Beach kook group appeared in the store. It was Hippy Dave, the singing, cycling, sadhu who is one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met. (Dave’s birthday is May 8th, horoscopically exactly opposite my November 8 birthdate.) Because of cold and inclement weather at the beach I hadn’t seen Dave for a couple of months.

But there in Trader Joe’s, Dave and I had our usual wonderful synergistic ‘satsang’, greatly recharging our spiritual and psychic batteries. And while we talked the smiling Trader Joe’s man finally emerged from the stock room, triumphantly holding up my non-glutenous bread and anti-diarrheal blackberries.

The diarrhea, the dead battery, and the empty bread and berry shelves, together proved to be consecutive disguised blessings. But for their unexpected sequential occurrence, I wouldn’t have met Sri Dave and enjoyed our great Trader Joe’s satsang. And but for the smiling TJ man, I would have checked out empty carted before Dave’s arrival.

Moral of the story:

Look for the disguised blessing in every experience, especially in every difficult experience.

Hippie Dave and Ron reciting poetry at Aquatic Beach, 10/29/13

To satisfy possible curiosity about Hippie Dave, here is a rare video of him spontaneously reciting from memory one of his many extraordinary poems:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed
everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
~ William Blake

“Our separation of each other is an optical illusion of consciousness.”
~ Albert Einstein

‘Time, space and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen…
In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’
~ Swami Vivekananda [Jnana Yoga]

“The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.”
~ Lao Tzu

“Consciousness is the basis of all life and the field of all possibilities.
Its nature is to expand and unfold its full potential.
The impulse to evolve is thus inherent in the very nature of life.”
~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

“Consciousness is always Self-Consciousness.
If you are conscious of anything, you are essentially conscious of yourself.”
~ Ramana Maharshi

Lao Tzu

Q. What is human consciousness?A. Universal Awareness is the essence and origin of all life.
Human thought divides universal Awareness as a prism divides light.
So, human consciousness is seemingly circumscribed universal Awareness;
it is pure Awareness conditioned by conceptions.

“Synchronicity is choreographed by a great,
pervasive intelligence that lies at the heart of nature,
and is manifest in each of us through what we call the soul.”
~ Deepak Chopra, Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire

How can the divine Oneness be seen?
In beautiful forms, breathtaking wonders, awe-inspiring miracles?
The Tao is not obliged to present itself in this way.
If you are willing to be lived by it, you will see it everywhere,
even in the most ordinary things.
~ Lao Tzu

Q. Why do coincidences and synchronicities in time often seem so noteworthy or meaningful?A. They are emblematic reminders of Reality beyond time.
Time is how mind measures the immeasurable NOW.
Time is but a convenient conception of the mind.
Though convenient, time is not congruent with Nature – the Tao.
Tao and Zen are NOW, not then.
In Nature, all that ever is, was or will be is NOW,
and there are no “coincidences”.
But, because time is a product of thought,
time is always then, not NOW,
and in time there are conceptual coincidences.
As we transcend conceptually living in past time,
and begin authentically living in the timeless present,
we notice more and more so-called “synchronicity” or “coincidence” in our life stream.
These are Nature’s ‘bio-feedback’ or ‘radar’ signals
that we are existing out of time and in the eternal NOW,
where there are no coincidences, just natural harmony and synchrony.
Without time, there can be no “synchronicity” or “coincidence” in time.
Because humankind lives mostly egoistically in time,
coincidences and synchronistic signs of timeless Reality
often seem so noteworthy or meaningful.

Tao and Zen
are NOW,
not then.
~ Ron Rattner, Sutra Sayings

“That which is timeless is found now.”
~ Buddha

“Life can be found only in the present moment.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here,
and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment,
we cannot be in touch with life.”
~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I’ve temporarily tuned
out of temporality,
And tuned in to timelessness.
And an inner voice says silently:
Now it’s time to live
in timeless temporality –
In the world, but not of the world –NOW.

Truth is a pathless land.”
~ J. Krishnamurti

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.
~ Lewis Carroll

“Path presupposes distance;
If He be near, no path needest thou at all.
Verily it maketh me smile
To hear of a fish in water athirst!”
~ Kabir

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life”
~ John 14:6

“The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart.”
~ Buddha

Q. What are “spiritual paths”?A. “Spiritual paths” are unique pathless paths
to everywhere/nowhere/NOW.
They are symbols of how
each unique earth person evolves
to transcend his/her entity identity,
Merging with the universal Way or the Tao.
Unlike earthly paths, spiritual paths
do not lead to space/time destinations,
But to transcendence of earthly limitations.
So “spiritual paths” are ways
in which we become the Way.